Asili the Journal Blogspot

remembering brother jack mcduff (2)

2010-07-07T01:44:00.000-07:00

remembering brother jack mcduff

(1926 -2001)

one of the funkiest, most soulful styles
of all time his blues-soaked solos &
rock solid basslines balanced by repetitive
grooves, melodies, & melodic hooks
revealed an artist in full possession
of his voice as an organist in the formative
soul jazz genre that lifted him up from the
earth & drew unto him no less than
george benson & boss tenor gene jughead
ammons who together on one date built the
architecture of the soul jazz vernacular to
span hard bop & jazz-funk to sundry acid
jazz destinations, & for brother jack to earn
the esteem & respect conveyed by the
honorific “brother” which encoded his
elevated status within the idiom.

©Joseph McNair;2010

remembering jimmy mcgriff (1)

2010-07-06T19:25:00.000-07:00

Remembering Jimmy McGriff

he played jazz as dance
music, whether it was music
by basie, bird, ray charles
or james brown. Over swing,
shuffle & funk rhythms, he
laid down a focused blues homily
that perorated through his solos
with gospel-like intensity.
A charismatic, his soul jazz style
was spirited, gifted & sophisticated
his propulsive rhythmic feel capable
of exhuberant declamation &
persuasion. He could make that B3
say ow! Gave it essential nonverbal
elements of communication
that modified meaning & emotion
made that organ scream! establishing
his creds as a fire breathing blues-
based organist, well-versed in
gospel soul with a ha'mercy funky
groove.

© Joseph McNair;2010

for black arthur blythe (10)

2010-07-03T00:04:00.000-07:00

for black arthur blythe
(1940)

the abstract awoke in him, caused something to stir something interesting, something organic, something free in young black arthur’s blithe spirit; an event in consciousness -- an interaction in presence between artist & seminal tone, an aural vision of the sacred, a hierophany, received from tapscott in the sanctum of the pan-afrikan peoples arkestra, in his spirit’s womb chamber, that called out his consciousness, made it helically move, spiral up; pushed him out on popular bandstands. made him existentially play, his baroque tone, rich & husky, a passionate wail on high, a sweat-soaked pulsating vibrato trailing in its wake, weaving an exquisite tapestry of melody around occult scale patterns, stretching the blues to the edges of improvisation – too out for popular breakthough & an obvious target for the inevitable pushback of negation – the trial, terror error & experience of rejection, incredulity pushing him back & into the umbra of a dazzling winton’s shadow, into an unlikely wood shed. he laid there & he played there until possessed by the wave/shades of older styles which took his head, pierced the flat, polished surfaces of his genius. & he embraced them, those ghostly remembrances, held them close, closer than haunting; heard the whole of jazz’s historical process in their stylings, in his own homagic practiceplay. heard the progression from bleak self–alienation to self–unification & realization; heard implicit contradictions become explicit & knew suddenly that each stage of that process – the blues, ragtime, dixieland, swing, bebop, progressive, cool, free, hard bop, latin, post-bop, fusion nü-jazz – is the product of contradictions inherent or implicit in the preceding stage. understood that what comes into being is, at the same time, returning to nothing, connected only by ephemeral tendrils of crafted sound, the sound of becoming. & in the darkest part of that shadow, black arthur had his epiphany – to sublate the negation he must preserve in his playing useful portions of the past – the riffs, the runs, the licks & chops; the methods of creation & divergent personal styles – while moving beyond their limitations; breathe/blow into & out of his alto a new dialectic – & he stepped out of the shadow, played the abstract concrete; played joyfully free.

remembering fred anderson (9)

2010-06-29T02:54:00.000-07:00

remembering fred anderson
(1929 -2010)

a kwasaba

chicago legend, lone prophet on the prairie
booed off the band stand in ’60
@ the fifth jacks club in the
town he made his home. but stayed,
played his free jazz in their heads,
made their hearts embrace him; know the
canny prophet in his own home town.

©Joseph McNair;2010

remembering will bill davis (8)

2010-06-28T22:32:00.000-07:00

remembering wild bill davis
(1918-1995)

a kwansaba

mythic bridge builder; a man span between big
band swing & acid organ combo; set
the tone, worked preset & drawbar,
shaped an audible vatic vision that smote
jimmy smith on his lonely road to
fame. sent him to the wood shed;
& out the back door to destiny!

©Joseph McNair;2010

remembering jimmy smith (7)

2010-06-28T15:19:00.000-07:00

remembering jimmy smith

(1925-2005)

i heard … a cat playing forty choruses of georgia brown in pure

'nashua' tempo & never repeating. i heard futuristic,

stratospheric sounds that were never before

explored on the organ."

--babs gonzales

u pulled out that stop, that third harmonic, & the bulb
lit up… thunder & lightning, u said, & stars fell out
of the sky! silver & blakey brought the bop, the hard
edged urban bop, but u, jimmy, brought the funk to jazz
long before the mothership touched down -- when george clinton
was still working his way thru’ doowop -- the chitlinstank
in the neighborhood funk, the sweetsweat-not-acid shirt
soaking funk, the left-hand walkin’, foot pedal stompin’
got my mean mojo workin’ funk partnered with a sizzling
virtuoso horn solo playing right hand. made that hammond
b3 hum, shriek; made it blues shout, holler & scream, or
purr & coo or softly cry -- an ascended master
ere the cognoscenti knew the jazz organ had one.

©Joseph McNair; 2010

a mule of a different sort (6)

2010-06-28T01:08:00.000-07:00

a different sort of mule

for hundreds of years whites have projected

the belief that …[non whites]…are inferior, a

concept that is in- consistent with reality.

what is the result? A mass psychosis has set

in among many white people.

ja a. jahannes

when inconsistency is prolonged
between belief system & reality,
psychosis ensues…

gov. jan brewer’s egotonicity, her
cognitive unraveling, the crudity of
her categorization & labeling –

“we all know that the majority of the
people … coming to arizona &
trespassing are now …drug mules” –

of (in her mind) related & perceived
possible threats bears witness to this.
she has become like "il duce" a lens,

a nonadjustable fixed focus of sharp
images of white supremacy, creative
fictions to which her like-minded

constituencies cling; like the skeletal

steel-fingered grip of a corpse that

squeezes an object treasured in life;

that act like hallucinogens which alter
perception, thought & mood & are
dealt (her mouth to their ears) from

the very seat of state government. is
she not herself a courier, mind & soul

packing/stuffing the psychotics she

has swallowed & smuggled across the
rational borders of morality. is she not,
herself, a mule of a different sort ?

©Joseph McNair;2010

sketches of cité soleil (5)

2010-06-19T05:02:00.000-07:00

sketches of cité soleil

for whose entertainment shall we sing our agony?

in what hopes? that the destroyers, aspiring to

extinguish us will suffer conciliatory remorse

at the sight of their own fantastic success?"

-- ezili dantò

i.

a light aircraft
just under 12,000 lbs.
bezwen soulajman
(needed supplies)

overflies runway;
crashes in cité soleil.
manna from heaven?

the carrion folk
come, groaning for burial --
strip the carcass clean.

gone before the blood
pooled on the pilot seat clots,
long before it dries.

ii.

chimères: ghost
gangs who haunt breeze-block walls that
grin like rotted teeth,

buildings scarred, pitted
from eruptive bullets, who
traffic in terror!

bereft of purpose,
& populist vision, they
steal, rape & kidnap;

extort & kill without
guilt or remorse. trade their souls
for weapons.

iii.

vigilante groups –
neighborhood protection – meet
terror with terror;

steal, rape, kidnap, kill –
in retributive orgies
of feral justice.

no police dare come,
no blue helmets seen in no-
go cité soleil.

no international
peace keepers come without
armored vehicles.

iv.

no female is safe.
the penis is a weapon;
a tool of control.

one in two girls &
young women soul soiled by
sexual abuse.

children’s songs spread tales
of what the boys have done – the
girls cannot go home!

the women cry out
we are shamed & dishonored
to ears trauma stopped!

v.
even h.i.v. –
dread diare masisi
who lurks, zombi walks –

fails to scare, deter.
is warded by strong potions
of vaginal rinse,

water quaffed that washed a
lover’s most private parts clean,
or sex in the sea,

or houngans sleeping
with girls possessed with spirits
infected with a.i.d.s.

vi.

pòv cité soleil’s
haze of dust & cooking smoke
hides her real abuse:

1st world sabotage,
aid agency failure &
government neglect.

a people betrayed:
one hundred twenty-two years
of indemnity

extorted by france;
20 billion dollars paid,
the cost of revolt.

vii.

billions of dollars
of aid appear, disappear;
swilled by corruption.

i.m.f. loans &
structural adjustment speed
resource extraction.

cheap u.s. produce
flood all haitian markets
farmers stop farming,

& in the highlands
desperate people strip bare
the once lush forests.

viii.

impotent leaders
sadly caricature what
government should be.

grounded by the shades
of rulers, overthrown &
assassinated,

residually
haunting the government seat,
they are bent, twisted,

voracious & cruel
or at best indifferent.
èske gen espwa?
(is there hope?)

ix.

is there any hope
for those held hostage by life
in cité soleil?

in cité soleil
where folk decrease to half-lives;
in set rate decay.

a malignancy
poverty, not vodou, makes;
metastasizes.

where there’s life, there’s hope.
where there is hope, redemption.
beni ayiti!

©Joseph McNair;2010

fix the shading on the children's faces (4)

2010-06-16T13:12:00.000-07:00

fix the shading on the children's faces!

"to depict the biggest picture on

the building as a black person, i would

have to ask the question: why?"

steve blair

what guides the hand of a
muralista? some glittering
idea that compels from a
world apart? some form
embedded in media matter,
awaiting a cunning artisan
touch to coax it out in all of
its material splendor? or
maybe some possessing
spirit of the age to take the
head, insinuate itself into
the lime mortar or plaster,
the tempera or encaustic
colors ground in a molten
beeswax or resin binder to
buon-or-mezzo-fresco
social realist art into the
public sphere -- to achieve
a political goal, to socially
emancipate, to advertize.
the mural mice, hardly a cell

of trotskyites, hired to paint

two intersection-facing walls

of the miller valley elementary

school in prescott, arizona,

learned first hand the backlash

of white privilege. they daringly

deigned to represent a multiethnic

vision --children using "green"

modes of transportation.

dominating pattern & symmetry,

points of interest & texture,
line & depth of field was the
striking image of a young
brown boy with a thick strong
jaw & defiant eyes, on one
knee, poised to get up &…act!
a metaphor for the artist in
a decadent capitalist society?
shaped by conflict between

himself & the social forces

arrayed against him? hardly.
like david alfaro siqueiros’
tropical america, brimming
with radical political militancy
or diego rivera’s provocative
post impressionist mural for

the hotel de prado in mexico

city including the words

"god does not exist" or jose

orozco’s symbolist murals

promoting the political causes

of peasants & workers?

not at all -- but powerful enough
to provoke a thermidorean
reaction from the prescott
demographic. from moving cars
came the shibboleths:

"you're desecrating our school,"
“get the nigger off the wall!”
“get the spic off the wall!”

hurled by the philistine, the
conservative & the frightened;
prompting the school principal
to tell the mural mice to lighten

up --the images on the wall,

that is; make those dark folk

lighter before they draw out

the destructive quality of

reconstructed whiteness, its

sinister structural causes &
consequences, before they
reveal the possessive
investment in being white &
the reinvention of white
identity as nonracist,

nonoppressive & victimized --

informed by the delusions &
projections of so-called decent
folk preserving their heritage.

©Joseph McNair; 2010

we cannot chuse but hear (3)

2010-06-15T14:56:00.000-07:00

we cannot but chuse to hear

at length did cross an albatross:

thorough the fog it came…

samuel taylor coleridge

formed when sand,
silt & grains of clay,
scraped & torn away
by tenacious, taloned
fingers of wind, rain,
& glacial ice, from
sundry land terrain --
proud mountains &
defiant flatlands –
whose scarring
declaims like totemic
tattoos the lingering
injuries & damage;
join the downslope
creep of soil to be
carried by rivers,
streams & gravity,
deposited in layers of
sediment on the ocean
floor, in riverbeds &
swamps, mixing long
dead organic miasma,
the fossil remains of
plants & planckton
mixed with mud &
sand, squeezed into
source rock & heated
to the night temperatures
of the earthen crust,
bearing the downward
press of a hundred
thousand years, the
transforming weight
that releases kerogens --
the black waxy crude,
or natural gas -- into
porous or fractured
rock, into subsurface
pools – one of gaia’s
many seepages &
secretions – brought
forth from wounds
piercing her dermis in
spurts of black, thick
& tar-like fossil
fuel or small, light
effervescent carbon
chains timed to the
beat of her heavy
heart. like a blood
donor, she has given
much & often, has
transfused mankind’ s
movement & industry
but now bleeds
uncontrollably from
too many punctures,
bathing wetlands &
barrier islands in a
tide of oozing crude,
smothering an entire
generation of shrimp
& crab, smothering
dolphins, whales &
turtles, poisoning fish
turning diving birds –
gannets, pelicans
frigates. & sanderlings –
into flightless, oil-soaked,
drowning birds. can we
not read the portents,
the omens? have we
lost the gift of auspicy?
the higher the bird flight
the more favorable the
omen but flightless
birds portend certain
doom. can we not see
as one with a glittering
eye? see for endless
days & nights the curse
in the eyes of the eleven
deep water horizon dead.
must we wander in our
guilt this earth to tell
any & all who might
listen that god glories
life over greed, loves
all things s/he has made?
or will we remain the
unwitting prizes of
yellow-haired, red-lipped
life-in-death

©Joseph McNair;2010

si m mouri, ou pral mouri!” (2)

2010-06-06T11:59:00.000-07:00

si m mouri, ou pral mouri!”
(if i die, you die!)

once an island lush with trees, ayiti is
bereft, her mountainous breasts bare,
their covering ripped by hunger’s rapine
hand. the cold aromatic sea breeze with its
tangy, fishy smell meets an acrid warmer air
from a land smoking, redolently reeking of
wood burning on lle de la gonave, stacked
in whitened piles eternally curing, then
bagged & distributed in les arcahaie.

the people cry out: “nou vle manje; nou pa vle
mouri!” (we want to eat; we do not want to
die!) but the land screams “ou ap tiye m!”
(you are killing me!)

ninety eight per cent of her forests gone,
fifty-odd thousand grieving trees felled each
day like brittle warweary soldiers under truce
to clear the way for summer floods to wash her
rich, nutrient topsoil into the sea. riding bare
back on the scent of charcoal are the foul
cadaverine & putrescine bouquets that beckon
skulking desertification, the scavenger who
will surely come to clean the island’s bones!

but the people insist: “nou vle manje; nou pa vle
mouri!” (we want to eat; we do not want to
die!) & the land screams “se mwen menm
mouri!” (i am dying!)

are there no environmental regulations? no
subsidiaries for alternative fuels? where is
government? behold bureaucrats, the mango
tree is too precious to cut down. plant mango
plantations. tell yr people to plant corn, sorghum
& beans between a few mango trees on their
small farms. harvest the towering mounds of
garbage, recycle the paper. use that as cooking
fuel! there are no shortages of solutions!

terrace farm the mountains! cultivate plants
that will thrive on mountainsides, whose
roots will hold in place, stabilize & regenerate
the soil. behold businessmen, there are haitians
who know how to do this, who are doing this
already! where is the money? & where are the
teachers, the each-one-teach-ones who persuade
the people that killing the land brings on their
own unconscionable & inevitable demise

the people rejoin: “nou vle manje; nou pa vle
mouri!” (we want to eat; we do not want to die!)
& the land responds with resignation ”si m mouri,
ou pral mouri!” (if I die, you die!)

© Joseph McNair;2010

hb2281 (1)

2010-06-04T13:58:00.001-07:00

hb2281

"tell me & i will forget,

teach me & i might remember;

involve me & i will learn."

ancient chinese proverb

languages [like the arizona
wapiti or the arizona jaguar]
become extinct when no longer
able to negotiate hostile or
changing conditions or prevail
against irresistible competition.
the moment of extinction? the
death or muting of the last
language speaker. the last
ubykh speaker died in turkey
in ‘92 at the unethereal &
certainly uneternal age of 88.
cultures [like the greater prairie
chicken or the passenger pigeon]
become extinct when cultural
diversity is abated & languages
are endangered & proscribed
with extreme prejudice!
every two weeks, a culture
dies, taking with it irreplaceable
knowledge & experience into
a great unknown. we stand,
some of us, strangely mute,
unmoved or unmoving & at our
own peril, like vacuous & self-
absorbed deutschländers in ’23
unmindful of the frenetic, evil
goings on in the bürgerbräukeller"
while in arizona a general process
of destruction, like a tall, dense &
involved nephotic mass, gathers
momentum. a delusional rationality
begets an imaginary construct
which shapes a body politic in the
image of its fears, resentments &
whited sepulchral utopias, razing
relentlessly & trying to eliminate

the rest of us, “the enemy”;

attempting to reduce vibrantly

viable speech, customs,folkways &

the spirit of the same to eerie

artifacts of the extinct …

& the rage of affluent collectors.

©Joseph McNair;2010

arizona goddam! (17)

2010-05-26T11:44:00.000-07:00

arizona goddam!

alabama's gotten me so upset
tennessee made me lose my rest
& everybody knows about
mississippi goddam…
nina simone

dos cabesas, yr steep mountain slopes & granite
outcroppings, yr vegetated canyon floors provoke
strong feelings of arousal, attraction, & yes,
even love by more than just the white-tailed &
mule deer or eagles, golden & bald, the ranging
mountain lion, the beautiful collared lizard &
the peregrine falcon. u, dos cabesas, are,
indeed,a love object for arizona natives
imprinted by the wilderness with its uncultivated
spaces,its searing heat with that eerie desert
dust on its winds, a narcotic that makes them
susceptible to quaint hallucinations (daylight
savings time is a bolshevik plot),conservative
& highly distrusting of government. (goddam!)
where lawmen under the influence of frontier
fancy could take a hapless but convenient
outlaw straight from the lyrics of their state
song, a befuddled recidivist burglar named
ernesto arturo miranda, compel from him a

rape, etc., confession, make him write it down

& sign papers with a printed certification that

he “voluntarily & of my own free will, with no
threats, coercion or promises of immunity…” &
“full knowledge of … his)…legal rights” made
that confession, but failed to inform him of
his right to have an attorney present & of his
right to remain silent.(goddam!)
where in a season that saw even ronald reagan
bow to the inevitable winds of change by signed
the king holiday into law, three house republican
arizonans, including an “unevolved” john mccain
& that doyen of true american conservativism,
senator barry goldwater voted unequivocally no!
state lawmakers like sand lemmings followed suit.
babbitt, not sinclair lewis’ vacuous protagonist,
but a governor doing the right thing, signed an
executive order declaring a paid king holiday.
but 7 months & 24 days later, soon-to-be-

impeached evan mecham rescinded that order

in one of his first acts as governor! (goddam!)
rising from a searingly dry tropical airmass,
pulled northward by low-pressure cells moving
eastward across the two-head's wilderness

echoing off the sulphur springs & the san simon

valleys came a venal & corruptible voice calling

out to arizonans with the arrogated authority of

i am that i am: “i guess king did a lot for the

colored people, but i don’t think he deserves a

national holiday.” but the rocks surely cried out

in protest & boycotts. all manner of stones,

pythagorean frozen music, released their song

with stevie wonder singing lead --hapy birthday

to yuh -- public enemy struck back, the nfl

relocated the super bowl & arizonans, kicking &

screaming, capitulated in ’92 (goddam!)
where even the wind that competes at dusk

to be heard with the yips, barks & howls of

coyotes in telltale yellow desert coats, weeps &

wails in uncertain english even tho’ placed for

a year in english immersion classes where

languages other than english were banned from

speech. brainfried arizonans insist that the

speech of the alligator juniper, the bitter condalia

& crucifixion thorn, the catclaw & even the skunk

bush had better be the same as that which arose in

england & southeastern scotland; that they

obsequiously subordinate their mother tongues,

their identity & culture, for to speak a language

other than english is nothing more than a social

defect.(goddam!)
behold arizonans, the behemoth that u have made,
rising out of the desert, so mean, & abrupt of
emotion – & so unlike that mighty torch-bearing
mother of exiles on a distant shore who verily
welcomed the poor & the homeless. this shire reeve
golem of single eye & foul disposition casts his
all-seeing search light glance to expose & extirpate
all illegals wherever they might be found, especially
in the ghostly golden gate barrio, in cuatro milpas,
or in any of the barrios historicas that housed the
brown laborers who built yr streets & towns, yr

canals, laid tracks for trolleys & trains that brought

in the droves of undocumented anglos who

overwhelmed the indigenous population! (goddam!)
what have u done, arizonans? the adam of yr labors
has run amok & points proudly back to the womb

from whence it came – that monster matrix of

racism, red-baiting,anti-government sentiment &

resentment of anything progressive, whose birth

juices reek of hatred & calumny – back to u & yr

guiltfear, yr paroxysmally parochial thinking. it has

engorged on a steady diet of rights violations, english-

only legislation, reasonable suspicion & belief, & now

it stalks like a grotesquery seeking to devour the
interdisciplinary study of racialized peoples, latinos
& chicanos in particular. what makes u think, brain-
fried arizonans, that it won’t turn on & devour u?

©Joseph McNair;2010

most interesting of our american birds (16)

2010-05-24T10:41:00.000-07:00

most interesting of our american birds

the gooey oil washing into the maze of marshes along the
gulf coast could prove impossible to remove, leaving a
toxic stew lethal to fish and wildlife...
government officials & independent
scientists

most interesting of our american birds
whose iconic flight & voracious appetite
inspired no less than audubon to inscribe
rhapsodically in his journals:

listen to the sound of the splash they make
as they drive their open bills, like a pock-net,
into the sea…

a pelican feeding its young embossed on
louisiana’s state seal by 1804 & on her blue
unfurling flag by 1912, a fitting perch for one
who’d tear her own flesh to feed her young.

one of ornithology’s most astonishing events,
in 1966, the year it became louisiana’s state
bird, pelecanus fuscus vanished like the hero
in a novel from the state’s entire coast.

did concurrent tropical storms savage vulnerable
nests in its overwash? perhaps some pathogen
or virulent human encroachment struck? or
more likely the toxic pesticides from

agricultural plains, drained into the mighty
mississip, got absorbed by anchovies &
other favored fish -- did an inside job on
eggshell formation, on eggshell thickness,

& caused the heroic pelican – the same who
would destroy itself to feed its young -- to
destroy its eggs as it sat on them within its
nest to incubate & protect them.

thus did the brown pelican become like a
novel’s anti-hero whose one abiding trait
is bewildered & anxious uncertainty about the
futility & fundamental amorality of life.

for despite efforts to transplant fledglings from
florida’s peninsula, at hundreds per year, or
banning ddt, the pelican will never see any
pattern in life & rarely its destination.

we can see this now in the frightened eyes of
oil-soaked birds who hobble like drunks at dawn’s
break on barataria bay because they cannot fly;
whose brown & white feathers, are now jet black.

whose nests & new hatchlings are coated with
crude, whose gunk-glazed eggs, like their habitats,
may never be cleaned or saved, whose offensive
images are the new expletives for corporate greed

& signs of our failure to live in harmony with nature,
symbols of our disdain for ecological balance,
signifiers of our suicidal self-absorption --
new metaphors for our insanity.

© Joseph McNair;2010

stormy weather (15)

2010-05-15T17:09:00.000-07:00

stormy weather

for lena horne

(1917 - 2010)

tube captured, tube enthralled -- cut off from
smell, touch, taste, heat-sense & gravity. only
my eyes & ears worked, held at electron gun

point by florescent vision – those long shapely
brown legs (with the eagles on her stockings
that flew in formation up under her hemline,

still flock in jagged colored specs & fly in
semicircular orbits around the edges of my eyes)
fill my memory now like they filled that large,

deep & heavy evacuated glass envelope so many
days of my youth ago when that heart shaped,
luminous face (that no gal made could get the

shade), those large, bold beautiful eyes paired
with that elusive smile made their impressions,
made me consider my first faustian exchange --

my soul for just a few moments, maybe just one
night. i was, afterall, 12, star-struck & heavily
hormonal. if made to choose between lena as

sweet georgia brown, god or petunia jackson,
georgia (miss brown to u!) would win every
damn time. i was no inverterate gambler then &

my real addictions were years ahead, but I felt
like a drunk heady in his very first cups. the
pleasure possibilities waxed infinite. the very

thought of her & me – a real little joe – made
a fantastical cabin in the sky seem quite absurdly
possible, even desirable. & then i heard her sing.

another night, another movie, same television...
framed against an open window adorned with
formal treatments -- swags, jabots & pleated

drapes -- that could have been several of the
imaginable colors in the middle gradient shades
of gray, between absolute black & white, looking

out on an urban evening street scene which
captured a couple scurrying to get out of the
rain & prefaced by introductory strains from the

cab calloway orchestra with a cameo of the immaculate
cab himself animatedly conducting that special
group of musicians who needed little in the way

of conducting. she sang a sultry soprano lament
(an offstage wind machine ruffling the sheer full-
length sleeves of her perfect black & sequined

dress). her perfect phrasing evoked a swarm of
associations caught up in a vertically oriented
rotating column of emotion & she sang her

heart thru the vortex, making the raging storm
a distinctive collocate of the literal; a subtle way of
grasping one kind of thing in terms of another,

fixing its elemental turbulence & power as the
central & controlling image of her lifesong:

don’t know why there’s no sun up in the sky,
stormy weather, since my man & i ain't together
seems like its raining all the time

i felt the stirrings of love in that moment, for
lena & for language, for she embodied every
feature of a poem in motion draped in a

musical score. she had a way of spreading her
arms when she sang that had no paraphrase,
but just as clearly said “love me” & when

she left that open window walking down
stairs that split the orchestra into two sections
with the camera panning from full room to

a head to hip shot to climbing up her bodice
resolving in a full body shot framing her in
a spotlight on a night club floor & in my

poetic heart, she became for me more than
a beautiful, evocative ornament, but an enduring
metaphor for the complexities of love.

© Joseph McNair; 2010

awaiting an appropriate provocation (14)

2010-05-14T08:31:00.000-07:00

awaiting an appropriate provocation

tell me, arizonans, is a god or perhaps
some human demiurge supposedly
the author of your laws?

surely a god, for who else might godly
see thru’ layers of artifice & deception,
in honest toil, toned down actions & attire,
minimal human intercourse, capricious
movement, desperate concealment, the
furtive, undocumented heart?

whose nostrils can indeed detect the
stench of flight from custody or country;
the reeking infectious foreignness of
interlopers, who abide among us
fangfeeding off the fat of the land,
diminishing us all.

tell me, arizonans, are there among u,
like minos, those who commune with an
olympian sire? inspired to make laws

that bestow clairvoyance on lawmen,
enable them to clair-see “probable &
reasonable causes” in mexicans or
o.t.m.s who work the bean fields or
sinister sit on porches, in the back
of pickup trucks, in barrios & in

cantinas of historic ethnic enclaves or
those who don’t; who speak subversive
spanish, pantomime the tortilla & butter
truth about speedy gonzales, the frito
bandito, las posadas & la llorona or
any other appropriate provocation

for trivializing the human spirit --
por una noche de cristal fea,
arizona style.

©Joseph McNair; 2010

for wayne shorter (13)

2010-05-12T23:53:00.000-07:00

for wayne shorter
(1933 -- )

perhaps the music’s greatest living
composer, yr organic conceptions
of fissioning melody, harmony,
& rhythm took the state of play in a
fresh direction. one of the few young
composers who could take a piece
to miles & get it back unchanged;
get the band to play it like u wrote
it, conforming precisely to its often
bopish, sometimes modal structure,
swiveling where it said to swivel,
snaking where it said to snake,
crossing over the tonic center from
the consonant right or weaving back

over the new middle from the
dissonant left in densely dreaded
unison plaits that changed the sound
of jazz, that changed fluidly, like yr
own rollins-like tenor style, with its
ripping, runaway trane asymmetries
to the coruscating color of yr rhythmic,
interval leaping soprano solo voice
chanting its own mystical name &
transfiguring signature, its new motifs
& alternate insights assigned to
randomness, new denouements &
meticulous untyings of personal meaning –
rushing in where boppers fear to tread!

© Joseph McNair; 2010

for hubert laws (12)

2010-05-12T21:47:00.000-07:00

for hubert laws
(1939 -- )

from the start, when it was the instrument of the wood-god pan,
the flute has been associated with pure (some might say impure)
energy. its sound releases something naturally untamed..."
--seamus heaney

the iconic miss mary’s place,
a hoary houston honky tonk
prominently placed because
it pinpoints a precise location
for yr musical roots, soul sourced
in an urban manifestation &
a perceptible revelation of the
jook, ribald cake & whiskey
cousin to the beans & bacon
blues with a stepped up tempo
that sulky soaked the late night
& early morning air across the
street from yr house, combined
with yr mama’s gospel piano
& yr daddy’s harmonica riffs,
the basis of yr own funky, secular
testimony, the crucible where
rhythm & blues, classical julliard,
& the spiritual, weighed & mixed
in proper amounts, given time to
season, fluxed down, solve et
coagula, & transmuted into the
sweetest, purest melodic &
multicolored jazz flute tone
ever proffered, ever played.

© Joseph McNair; 2010

for bennie carter (11)

2010-05-12T01:20:00.000-07:00

for bennie carter
(1907 -2003)

the only musician to have recorded in eight
different decades, yr life, a symphony in riffs
pouring out of yr trumpet, out of yr alto, out
yr head & captured on vinyl, on tape, on compact
disc living & playing thru’ yr legend making,
writing it in the tales yr music told. yr rites of
passage & the sheparding process where those at a
higher level of understanding guided u to
& thru’ a greater exposure to the music. rex
stewart, sidney bechet, fatha hines, fats waller,
willie the lion smith, james p. johnson & the duke
transferred their powers to u, caused a change in yr
existential condition; freed u from profane time.

freed u to recapitulate the history of
the music that thru this recapitulation u
might sanctify the music anew, reveal its deep
meanings to the new generations, help them own &
assume the responsibility of mystical
vocation. u took time to befriend & mentor miles
when he had no friends; to mentor q when like u, he
wanted to write scores for film, to be there for j.j.
johnson, art pepper & max roach as they each increased
in stature & in favor. & u also took time
to teach yr alto to sing. yr signature sound was
smooth as silk, flowing like a lazy river that might
race like a rapid or be still like a honeyed pool.

© Joseph McNair; 2010

for ben webster (10)

2010-05-11T23:31:00.000-07:00

for ben webster
(1909 – 1973)

and i heard charlie parker for the first time & that
was quite a thrill. this guy scared me to death!
ben webster

what johnnie hodges was to the alto, u were in
spades to the tenor & when froggie went a’courting,
uh hunh, yr warm, breathy, sensual tone slickly slipped
like a tongue up under a stray hemline to caress
a fleshy thigh, make it surely shake with tremulous
waves of hurt-so-good need or turn brutish on a stomp,
ferally fecund, growling, rasping, rooted in the
blues. u were one of yr era’s three tenors, before
the sunrise of bebop, when the hawk & prez prowled the
bandstands seeking whom they might cut up. but when they tried
to cut u, they had to bring their lunch & dinner too.
u enjoyed a reign as king of the tenors, that is,
until bird came – then nothing else was ever the same.

© Joseph McNair;2010

for sidney bechet (9)

2010-05-11T21:05:00.001-07:00

for sidney bechet
(1897 -1959)

it is the world of your own soul that

you seek. only within yourself

exists that other reality

for which you long.

herman hesse

a double kwansaba

"le dieu," a sound force given into our
keeping, casting off tonic light from yr
spirit heat. yr sugary sweet improvs like
a savory beignet reek crawdad & shrimp;
yr vibrato at once wide in affect
cajoles octave joy, searing sorrow, fear &
creole from yr sax, yr mage’s wand.

twas a world of yr own sound
that u sought, that u dared to
draw us into, with its halls of
mirrors & endless doors, that magic odeum
within for which u did surely long;
that made u wolfly stalk jazz’s outer
steppes, its first great soprano soloist!

©Joseph McNair;2010

for mccoy tyner (8)

2010-05-08T18:13:00.000-07:00

for mccoy tyner
(1938 -- )

u were twenty-two when u joined the john coltrane quartet,
but clearly the real mccoy. trane knew this, kept u five years
close, at the core of this most seminal of jazz experiments.
from where did that transcendent piano style come? from
what holy place within? & where did u learn that unique
two-handed harmonic attack & rhythmic charge – yr block
chording low bass left hand stacking fourths & yr staccato
right hand flying thru pentatonic scales, modal structures,
inverted triads & multi-fingered runs – new voicings &
vocabulary for virtuoso jazz piano & growing each time u
played. u shadowed trane thru’ his scales, chordal structures,
melodic phrasings & rhythms, playing mantrically, intuiting
the sacred audible tones to help elevate each consciousness-
raising performance, drawing garrison & jones to u,
transcending & integrating all that had been played before,
fastened securely to his coattails, to his ascension. he took
u to the pinnacle of god consciousness, let u glimpse the
final & highest abode of ishwara, the ultimate revelation of
the self in perfect radiance & release. he would have taken
u further, into formless consciousness & boundless radiance.
but u did not like the free; were not yet ready for the street
of pefume sellers, &like the vagrant who was overcome by
the heady aromas on that street, who could only be revived
by a fecal sal volatile from the street’s gutters, u said all u
heard was noise; that u had no feeling for the new music.
turned away, turned back to yr unabsorbed present, to yr
raw blues & passionate pentatonic; turned back to comfortable
virtuosity, but haunted by an audible image of a seed syllable
where all sound, all music dissolves into perfect radiance &
release & a memory of not a means to an end but the means
& the end.

© Joseph McNair; 2010

for armando “chick” corea (7)

2010-05-07T00:31:00.000-07:00

for armando “chick” corea
(1941 --

a villenelle

angular melodies, latin-swing rhythms, extended, structured compositions,
hard bop proclivities & avante garde dispositions roiled in yr musician soul,
transient, finite, existing in time, negating the negation, defying definitions.

classical music was a just way to learn to play, but jazz allowed u the juxtapositions
u sought of tempo, virtuosity & improvisation, a way to fuse competing feels in
angular melodies, latin-swing rhythms, extended, structured compositions.

cathartic best describes the change that leads to turning points. contradictions
spiral, effervescent progressive rock stirs up the mix, makes the music helical,
transient, finite, existing in time, negating the negation, defying definitions.

u give yr passion wings. yr spanish heart pilots yr sonorous explorations
sometimes charted, sometimes floated; whatever the heart feels, pours into yr
angular melodies, latin-swing rhythms, extended, structured compositions.

redemption at the keyboards. blurring the line between yr many dispositions,
& freeform outbursts, fusion & rock; a synthesis is realized, a new u steps forth
transient, finite, existing in time, negating the negation, defying definitions.

yr voracious musical appetites compelled u to blithe quixotic explorations
of a wider musical world, while evolving a distinctive & venerable voice within
angular melodies, latin-swing rhythms, extended, structured compositions;
transient, finite, existing in time, negating the negation, defying definitions.

© Joseph McNair

julian “cannonball” adderley (6)

2010-05-06T00:10:00.000-07:00

for julian “cannonball” adderley

(1928 –1975)

yr chromatic & continuous lines, a cutting
tone & voracious spirit devouring the changes,
like a cannibal [not cannonball] with a fertile
fang in the new hardbop thang got u thru the fifties,
established yr street creds. u couldn’t be the new bird, the
naturally occurring vacuum in those big shoes
nearly sucked the life out of bebop & would not be
filled. but u were u, good enough to replace rollins,
play on the same bandstand with trane, make miles salute yr
talent. but u could not be contained for long in a
group not yr own. so u grabbed yr brother, nat, called on
the great ones who knew u, had played with u, to help u
lay down yr ha' mercy blues-based, soul jazz legacy.

© Joseph McNair;2010

for freddie hubbard (5)

2010-05-05T16:57:00.000-07:00

for freddie hubbard
(1938 -2008)

one foot in tonal jazz, the other in atonal,
a pendulum swing between interest & tension,
stable/passive & unstable/active, u were a
dialectician of sonorous euphony, the
most brilliant horn of a generation of cats who
swung from side to side, to & fro with gravity &
acquired momentum but would not fly off into the
deepest currents of free jazz. had a big beautiful
tone; a canny sense of rhythm & time; a fiery,
exuberant style that pushed u to hit notes higher
& faster than anyone else around or blow up
tense & tumescent to release the contents of yr
very soul in a soft melodic adumbration.

©Joseph McNair; 2010

for quincy Jones (4)

2010-05-05T07:01:00.000-07:00

for quincy jones

(1933 --

any writing or telling of the history of
black music without u in it is like the english
alphabet without the letter q, the dominant
missing from the diatonic scale, a volume of
space that is essentially empty! quincy delight,
my, my, my, my! what would have happened if u hadn’t
quit school & gone on the road with hamp? u started yr
career arranging songs for the likes of sarah, duke
dinah & ray, playing with the best known names in jazz.
& for more than sixty years u have burned yr imprint –
records, television, film; seventy-nine grammy
award nominations & twenty-seven grammys,
thirty-three major motion picture scores, an emmy,

seven oscar nominations, hundreds of millions
of records sold to name just a few of yr awards
& accolades – on the consciousness of the nation.
u have ushered american music from the post-
swing era thru’ today’s high-tech, international
multi-media hybridism. u have just like
ellison added yr ten drops of black to the mix,
making the discolored stuff like that the “purest white”
when shaken, like obàtálá’s cloth, & like the arch
divinity, u have molded the unique talents
of an eclectic group of singers & musicians
in yr image & likeness, that pays tribute to u,
the musician, composer, arranger, producer.

© Joseph McNair; 2010

for bud powell (3)

2010-05-04T14:01:00.000-07:00

for earl rudolph "bud" powell
(1924 –1966)

standing shoulder to shoulder with monk, u were
one of the twin towers of bop piano.
yr huge comping left hand let the odd bass note
outline the root & fifth, stretch to get the tenth,
& easily include the minor 7th.
yr homophonic right hand -- a storied blur
of dazzling arpeggios often spiced with
elaborations of or substitutions
for those bland white note scale tones -- turning chords out!
u had mad skills, bud. u walked in, the music
got into something, the jump started jointing!

© Joseph McNair; 2010

for max roach (2)

2010-05-04T12:48:00.000-07:00

for max roach
(1924 -- 2007)

a double kwansaba

from the great dismal swamp u came
to put fear & awe in the
drummer; to do more than just keep
time. to make magic, play the pulse
of the standard 4 on the ride
& free up the three other limbs
to make real change; to make music.

one of the last bebop giants, u
lived long, long enough to tell yr
whole story -- in solos, mixing up pitches,
timbres, using deft silence or blazing speed--
by making yr drums talk, sing yr
passion song of freedom, human rights, &
change until the very day u died.

© Joseph McNair

for charles “doc” austin (1)

2010-05-02T21:19:00.000-07:00

for charles “doc” austin

(1930 --

what turned u around, doc? thirteen is much too young to
die. what about-faced u? snatched u from that blissful peace,
from free floating out of yr body, looking down on
it from above & peristaltically moving
thru’ that surreal tunnel heading inevitably
to the brightest of lights? perhaps it was the music.
those buzzing, ringing near death tonalities that
were surely soundsign auguries pronouncing yr life
course meet & yr destiny in accord with divine
sanction. yr uncle’s second sight informed him, but his
physician’s skill convinced him, & he told yr loved ones
u had turned around, had broken death’s tenacious grip.
resolute, for better or worse, u were coming back.

although the magic city birthed u, fey destiny,
masquerading as the low down dirty blues drove u
from miami, dropped u in memphis in the loving
care of a fairy tale uncle who clothed u, fed u,
kept a roof over yr head, nursed u back from the edge
of pneumonitic death, bought u yr first saxophone,
a shiny soprano to help you strengthen yr lungs.
u poured into that conical tube of thin nickel
plated metal all the rage rending anguish of a
father’s abandonment, all the profound sorrow of
having to leave one’s mother, all the existential
terror of wrestling with death that a thirteen year old
could hold, contain; & u learned to really play that horn!

played so well that u picked up five dollar gigs on beale
street with b.b. king, in the house band at the mitchell
hotel. played the summer “carni” circuit when school let
out, flexing yr big fifteen year old chops from the big
easy to atlanta & points north – coming of age,
meeting diz who nudged u thru’ liminality to
rites of entry – & u won a talent show at the
handy theater & a music scholarship to
philander smith college; transferred to tennessee state
just to attend the school that topped the best jazz band polls.
played at clubs in nashville, for the great glee clubs
at t.s.u. & fisk, learned theory from quentin banks
who taught u how to write & play music differently.

left college for the navy, joined a vice admiral’s
flagship jazz band, even played the ed sullivan show.
did some woodshedding, studied theory with dave brubeck’s
brother. kept up with what diz was doing & listening
to & returned to tennessee state to finish yr
degrees. came home to miami-dade, reunited
with yr mother. married, had children, taught school during
the day, starred in the jazz band at the hampton house at
night, where mlk & malcolm x stayed when in the
magic city, where everyone who was anyone in jazz came
to play. u were the first black jazz man to integrate
miami beach, the eden roc & the fountainbleau
hotels – a living miami legend in yr time.

dizzy told u that when he first heard the music of
the pygmies, with their dense contrapuntal communal
improvisations & complex polyphony, he
thought he was hearing music that he had written. for
u, it was the mystical & distinctive sound of
the japanese five toned scales, the tonal images
that reconstructed stravinski’s fleeting vision of
a pagan ritual where a young girl danced herself
to death, those asymmetrical rhythms, percussive
dissonance, polyrhythms, polytonality;
the layering of persistently repeating themes
& melodic fragments that reeked of west africa;
that sent u creatively spinning, zoning, fuguing!

seek & ye shall find & u found all of those sounds &
blends & complements in the moog synthesizer. when
wendy carlos was switching on bach, u switched on
joe galivan & the two of u realized a
mutualistic symbiosis between woodwind, reed
& moog. galivan’s digital rhythm section freed
up yr restless saxophones, yr flutes, yr english horn
& oboe; freed u up to go where too few save trane,
pharoah, shepp & ayler dared to go. u gave him real
percussive freedom – to play melodies, chordal bass
lines, let him erase the boundaries of rhythm &
beat – freed him from just keeping time! the music took the
two of you to europe – communist romania.

under nixon’s cold war policy u won a state
department grant & were selected to play at the
opening of the new american library
in august ’69 in a pre-war mansion near
the heart of bucharest. booked with no less than the great
american composer, george crumb, & the winners
of the tchaikovsky piano competition. u
& galivan fired those romanians up with yr
music, had them screaming for more! a foreshadowing
of the university college london’s yearly
saxophone festival in the early seventies
where u were the only american saxophone
player invited back for ten consecutive years!

u have had a fully elaborated life, doc,
& at every stage a peak experience. u have
known & played with some of the great musicians of our
time, have won acclaim as a player, conductor &
creator. u have followed yr muse, explored the edgy, outer
limits of yr creativity, but found the time to
provide for & raise yr own children, eschewing the
lucrative & salacious enticements of the road.
u always came home, spared them the angst of abandonment
that u knew all too well & they grew to make u proud.
& those other children, the very ones u taught, trained
& mentored? that u touched their lives with music is worth
more than any honor or award bestowed on u.

© Joseph McNair;2010

for herbie hancock (30)

2010-04-29T22:52:00.000-07:00

for herbie hancock

(1940 --

there is nothing that music cannot undertake to do,

or dare, or portray, provided it continues

to charm & always remain music…

mozart

a remarkable creator, the step beyond bud
or monk – incredible synthesis of disparate
styles. a metamorphic with an uncanny knack for
soaking up life but remaining original like
ravel – who infused jazz into his concertos &
embraced the gypsy’s rhapsodic joy, trepidation,
& awe in his symphonic poems – u, herbie, a
miles davis wunderkin, brought glittering passages,
chordal melodies & enriched unisons to the
blues, webs of figurations to hard, edgy bop,
playing it funky, playing it electric but more
than that, feathering a cozy nest for unroosted
rock, rap & electronica to find their way home.

u have transcended limits & genre; absorbed deep
structures, the defining forms of classical, bebop
rock & soul; followed a brilliant path of transformation
upwards, shifting yr identity into even
higher order structures, enabling yr consciousness
to operate on, integrate the former in the
unimaginable spaces of yr genius – where
u have amamnestically come to know a deep,
fundamental frequency, an intonation, the
wombsound that birthed all music that u pray/praise when u
play, much like the laws of life u pray/praise when u chant
the sacred syllables nam-myōhō-renge-kyō,
the lotus sutra & symbol of yr transcendence.

©Joseph McNair;2010

for fela anikulapo kuti (29)

2010-04-27T23:35:00.000-07:00

for fela anikulapo kuti

(1938 –1997)

in four kwansabas

he played an under ground spirit game,
he who carried death in his pouch.
his music was the massage, his medium
of social change. but dem sojas come-o,
dey go beat am. make him mad!
who no know go know am today-o
ah-ah! wait-o, make i commot my dress!

olufela, god’s glory, no be shakara oloje
his songs, bullets & he go say:
zombi no go go unless u tell
am to go. but him mama dey
go quench; throw her out the window!
throw her down for ground, na wah-o!
dis african man no dey carry shit.

him fight am back with afro beat
him send his mama’s coffin for head
of state! he dey waka, waka, waka;
he go many places, sef. for his
mama, he dey cry, for his people,
he dey cry, with tenor sax & shekere
endless grooves & yabis, he dey cry!

baba is dead-o! ibà á şẹ baba!
ma a gbo bi awon baba wa
se nwi; listen to our fathers’ voices
in the fatidic sounds of afro beat
in its bodings & its auspice, in
its bitter truth; in the memory of
he who carried death in his pouch!

© Joseph McNair

for cecil taylor (28)

2010-04-27T11:30:00.000-07:00

for cecil taylor
(1929 --

roiling clusters of ringing chords
& a sharply percussive attack rewards
yr ever faithful band of devotees.
with an intense, galvanic tease
of freedom, a spirit reach towards

moksha, past the thrall of keyboards,
chord changes & tempo; affords
an ephemeral grasp of totality
at vision’s embrace.

uncompromising creator, yr poetic words
reinvent the free when the last accords
of yr tone poems play, decay, release
the dance & plaintive echoes cease
at vision’s embrace.

© Joseph McNair; 2010

for william "count" basie (27)

2010-04-26T00:34:00.000-07:00

for william “count” basie
(1904 --1984)

said u hit it with the rhythm & slid
into the riffs, & the riffs just stuck!
that signature tune aptly represents
yr essential big band sound, that
sound-as- spirit merging tone & time,
a procreative when in the early hours
of the a.m. where stuff just comes
together -- at one o’clock – in those
alchemical moments when worldly
dross is burned away & the mettles
of musicians flux. when their
aptitudes for making accidental,
but fortuitous solo runs & hip flurries
are discovered & profound
statements owned in the moment,
or when sections blend, become
organically one, more than who or
what they are & swing, even jump,
in rhythms that don’t have to be
taught, that take the muscles over
in the ambience of easy u created;
in yr cultivated poise & self-assurance,
in those contrapuntal accents where
u never wasted a note, in that space,
a staging ground for talent, where the
great ones gathered, ethel waters,
lady day, sassy sarah, ella, helen humes,
jimmy rushing, joe williams, prez, ben
webster, bird, diz, miles & countless
others. where none were stepped on,
where each might find what they liked
& needed – an easy swing, just like
cutting butter!

© Joseph McNair;2010

for willie the lion smith (26)

2010-04-25T21:37:00.000-07:00

for william henry joseph bonaparte bertholoff smith
aka willie the lion
(1893 -1973)

a derby wearing, cigar puffing legend in his
time, a peerless tickler’s tickler & myth come alive.
on any given night, he might be king of the rent
party, a spellbinding showman in segregated
atlantic city clubs or mentoring savant to
ellington, biederbecke, the dorseys & artie shaw.
a musician’s musician, composer of over
one hundred songs, at his very best favorably
compared to gershwin & the duke himself. his left hand,
the envy of every pianist in jazz. he was
there for all who sought him out -- & gave freely of his
prodigy -- but to the duke, his protégé, bestowed
his special graces, that touch of immortality.

© Joseph McNair;2010

for thomas wright "fats" waller (25)

2010-04-25T03:51:00.000-07:00

for thomas wright “fats” waller
(1904 –1943)

only you

can make this world seem right…

the platters

only u, fats, could frustrate yr reverend father’s
holy plans. only u could make him laugh, were surely
his expectation come to nothing; his lovable
incongruity. but divine humor is much less
mysterious than divine movement & yr frames of
reference were engineered to collide, yr shifts in
perspective duly twisted by a laughing god
who loved to hear the music u made. its incessant
shifts from seriousness to play, embodied in yr
syncopated right hand melodies uncannily
paired to a misbehavin’ stride left hand made ole al
“scarface” capone kidnap u at gunpoint & compel
u to play three days for his birthday – only u, fats!

©Joseph McNair; 2010

for james p. Johnson (24)

2010-04-25T02:02:00.000-07:00

for james p. johnson

(1894 --1955)

a kwansaba

how do u james p. johnson? well,
u play a four-beat pulse with a
single bass note, an octave, 7th or
a 10th on the first & 3rd
beats, a chord on the 2nd &
4th beats, then let yr left hand
swing, yr right hand blur – that’s stride!

for albert ayler (23)

2010-04-24T00:19:00.000-07:00

for albert ayler
(1936 --1970)

a double kwansaba

no one knew what u were trying to
do! yrs was a jazz beyond jazz;
breach birthed out of the blues, out
of gospel, out of sousa march tunes
(for god’s sake) into full blown atonal
soul cries & soul lows moving at
light speed to holy change into energy,

just another kind of blues, u said,
a real blues, a brand new blues
that floats, wafts over our heads, just
beyond our grasp. one day we will
know these blues, will find & cleave
them to us – like we surely found
yr body wafting in the east river.

© Joseph McNair;2010

for ferrell “pharaoh” sanders (22)

2010-04-22T23:46:00.000-07:00

for ferrell “pharaoh” sanders
(1940 --

yr pharaonic tonicity, of the sedge &
the bee, yr cunning & canny permutations of the
trilateral monosyllabic, often transcribe a
mystic resonance into soundscapes of old kemet
or japan, mantra-like, in simple, repetitive
melodies with an unhurried sense of perfect peace
or alternately into waves of harsh, overblown
cacophony – shrieking note clusters, rhythmic chaos –
growing into intense columnar vortices of
affect only to be sublimated again by
incessant repetitive phrasing, chanting, rolling
yr eyes up into yr head playing & praying &
giving in to the first manifestation of god,
the exquisite sound of her name, wholly holy – free!

© Joseph McNair; 2010

for archie shepp (21)

2010-04-22T11:41:00.000-07:00

for archie shepp
(1937 --

they tried to peg u, archie, then panned u when u failed
to fit their misconceptions. were u into free jazz?
were u afrocentric? an extrapolation of
r & b, perhaps? u were all of these & more – had
trane’s “sheets of sound” intensity. were just as free as
ornette from the prevailing conventions of rhythmic,
harmonic & melodic structure. u matched albert
ayler most times with yr blistering tone & savage
aggression & u flew high & funky like Illinois
jacquet. u never tried to transcend yr blackness, but
embraced it; framed yr music in african-centered
urgency & vision. a prophet is seldom known
in his own time & place -- & yr time is not yet come.

©Joseph McNair; 2010

for charles "buddy" bolden (20)

2010-04-22T01:05:00.000-07:00

for charles “buddy” bolden
(1877 – 1931)

a kwansaba

king buddy rose from new orlean’s pelvic
floor, part real, part myth, playing in
perdido -- the dives & tonks. his rhythm
drive, the power of his tone took
second to the madness of his ragtime --
a manic gabriel who blew his horn
when the blues came home to roost.

© Joseph McNair; 2010

for ferdinand "jellyroll" morton (19)

2010-04-21T10:30:00.000-07:00

for ferdinand “jellyroll” morton
(1885 –1941)
a kwansaba
said u invented jazz in ‘02
& being the best of the big
easy brothel players, spread yr shout, rag
& boogie north to thumb yr solos
at young james pee & "not yet
the lion" smith, bass walked them thru
major & minor sixths & into history.

© Joseph McNair; 2010

for lionel hampton (18)

2010-04-21T02:42:00.000-07:00

for lionel hampton

(1908 -- 2002)

"there was no better school in the world

than the lionel hampton orchestra.

he taught me how to groove &

how to laugh & how to hang

& how to live like a man."

-- Quincy Jones

o luminous national treasure, the very heart & soul of jazz;
to the music u were betrothed; to but play, yr fate & destiny,
such a fructifying spirit, full of vigor & pizzazz.

a focal figure on yr instrument, ingenuous, as great as
they come. u gave to the music a brand new vibraphonic voice
o luminous national treasure, the very heart & soul of jazz;

with serendipitous instant synergy, yr joyous playing has
healed the wounded spirit, fixed the heart & soothed the soul;
such a fructifying spirit, full of vigor & pizzazz.

u would swing until u dropped, scat “hey baba re ba” as well as
cut a mean rug with flashfancy foot & solo work,
o luminous national treasure, the very heart & soul of jazz.

u gave personality to an instrument thought sterile, cold as
apathy; raised its vibratory rate, made it simmer, made it swing,
such a fructifying spirit, full of vigor & pizzazz.

that we’ve been touched by yr music; yr vision come to pass
is evident in our beaming smiles when u come to mind.
o luminous national treasure, the very heart & soul of jazz;
such a fructifying spirit, full of vigor & pizzazz.

©Joseph McNair;2010

for art blakey (17)

2010-04-20T01:28:00.000-07:00

for art blakey
aka abdullah ibn buhaina
(1919 – 1990)

music washes away the dust of every day life.

art blakey

umatched u were in hard bop’s idiom,
yr mighty drive & steady pulsing beat;
yr artful & percussive axiom?
go heavy on the 2 & 4, bring heat.
lay down some slick but solid cymbal work
with ride & hi-hat on the very edge.
don’t rush, nail down the time, then go beserk
with manic press roll roars, let triplets wedge
between the 2’s & 4’s, let rimshots end
the phrase. throw in an afro-cuban feel,
& bounce. yr rhythm burned, a fiery blend
of all that’s hip & what is crazy real.
a bebop prophet, hard bop father/sage?
hell yes, & thaumaturgic rhythm mage!

© Joseph McNair; 2010

for elvin jones (16)

2010-04-19T12:49:00.000-07:00

for elvin jones
(1927-- 1986)

u surely played with great subtlety
& transcendental strength, elevating
yr drums to a higher ground, to the
foreground, working yr ride & high
hats, overcoming the time keeper
with yr legato phrasings, yr improvised
lines & exploding accents playing at once
& against several metrically contrasting
rhythms each with irregularly shifting
emphasis independent of systolic-like
pulse – jonesing – yr dense, percussive
layers & counter rhythmic motifs, yr
wide array of timbres made u nonpareil
improviser & architect of upscale,
organically evolving rhythmic synergy.

© Joseph McNair;2010

for milt jackson (15)

2010-04-19T10:08:00.000-07:00

for milt jackson
(1923 --1999)

a “rhapsodic melodist”
some have described u,
with those big puffy bags
beneath yr big, serious
eyes, yr sweet inimitable,
opulent tone, those fluid,
executions above all &

before all else swinging.

& those countless other

bags from whence u came.

yr integrated attack, free-

flowing in structure or

tightly unstructured if

u saw fit, featuring a

range of highly contrasted

moods & color but always

resolving/dissolving in the

blues, always yielding an

undercurrent of radiance

beneath slow cleverly

paced solos however bright

or darkly hued or a brilliant

sheen on the shimmering

surface structure of dazzling

melodic runs. yr cool stance

& unpostured mastery, never

looking stiff, never playing

from yr elbows. yr succinct

palms-inward two-mallet grip

coaxing out those sanctified

singing vocal lines or striking

those bebop, hard & post

boppish riffs, lavishing yr

soulfully elegant attention
like a skilled lover on yr
beloved instrument, striking
low notes softly in the

erogenous center of the

bar, playing near the node

in poignant phrasing, bowing,

pitchblending, setting new &

unequaled expressive standards

for vibraphonic virtuosity.

for george shearing, obe (14)

2010-04-17T21:38:00.000-07:00

for sir george shearing, obe
(1920 —

hail to thee, sound!—the power of euterpe

in all the scenes of life—

henry kendall

sir george, yr dad delivered coal to the palace at
westminster; yr mum cleaned the trains ‘tween giving birth to
one & seven siblings come before u — & after
caring for them the day long in battersea. & u,
the last, was born congenitally blind. thank yr stars
for music! thank euterpe, the giver of delight
for yr prodigy, for those old teddy wilson &
fats waller records, for making a quick way out of
cockney battersea, bringing u to america
giving u the lullaby of birdland & the kind
of music u made when u played double block chords on
top of octave melodies, yr beknighted voicing.
u 've done yr muse blinding proud. well cracking done, sir knight!

©Joseph McNair;2010

for mongo santamaria (13)

2010-04-16T15:53:00.000-07:00

for mongo santamaria
(1917 -- 2003)

baba mi jijo

my father, please dance

ijo leegun n jo

a masquerade should dance

bo loo dara, oro asimo

punishment awaits those who refuse

to honor a masquerade

egungun chant

conguero. yr hands beat a sacred path from
conga, to tumbadora to quinto, much
like yr sojourn from hustle/playing en las
calles locales de havana to the
night club tropicana; & from mexico
to new york & perez prado, cal tjader
y tito puente! the spirit of ayan
came upon u; made those congas sound like igbin
ipese & ogidan, drums sacred to
the yoruba; possessed bebop declaring
u "are ilu", mighty chief of drummers

© Joseph McNair;2010

for gerry mulligan (12)

2010-04-15T08:54:00.000-07:00

for gerry mulligan

(1927 --1996)

miles davis is one who writes songs when he plays.

gerry mulligan

yardbird invited u to jam
u played & it was on – hot damn,
a white, crew cut, bebop junkie
who surfaced without his monkey
out of the fifties & bedlam

with talent intact & then, bam,
a gig with miles, a new “i am,”
the birth of the cool (right on key)
& west coast jazz.

composer, arranger, goddamn
jeru! how did u ever cram
so much in yr bari – funky
atop the polls forty spunky
years nurturing de bop sh’ blam
& west coast jazz.

©Joseph McNair; 2010

for harry carney (11)

2010-04-13T21:14:00.000-07:00

for harry carney
(1910 -1974)

yr baritone sax ploughed deeply
in problematic bottoms; anchored
the distinctive tonal blend defining
duke’s orchestral sound. a lodestone
pointing/pulling north, piercing an
elevated artistic vanguard, yr deep,
thick, reedy licorice resonance, a
blithe harmonic weaving hook lacing
warp & weft of sundry black & tan
emotive threads: funky growls, high
falutin mood swings, dicty wah-wah
glidings, cucumber cool exotica,
pulsing jungle heart murmurs &
primal galloping rhythms. but duke
gave u yr regular solo voice & u
answered yr solo calls with lower
register power & robesonesque élan,
steeped in playful dash, impetuous
ardor. yr forceful blowing & wavering
tone could take on even the searing,
melodic wizardry of johnny hodges;
yr circular breathing would let u hold
a note forever. u carried that band, like
u drove the duke from gig to gig, for
forty-five years. when the duke threw
off his mortal coil & left us, like the
faithful sideman & doppelganger that
u were, u threw yrs off too. if there is
a regular set in the hereafter where
jazz men occasionally gather to jam,
i’m sure that with yr sisyphusian
patience & persistence, u are driving
the duke still & taking yr eternal place
on his bandstand.

©Joseph McNair;2010

for charlie haden (10)

2010-04-13T09:46:00.000-07:00

for charlie haden
(1937 --

o rambling boy, what drew u out of yr ohio
folk & country roots to translate yr lyrical bass
runs into the physical/mental extensions of
yr own logic musically expressed in a spare
unison group or solo context? was it the mild
brush with polio that ended yr singing career?
or maybe it was l.a.’s nasty drinking water?
nevertheless in ’59 u mainlined coleman’s
harmolodics, got hooked on potent passages of
collective improvisation; became one with yr
instrument, bent yr will to its will, & made even
mingus name u “bass” as u walked in time, ran free of
time & turned a stagnating idiom inside out.

©Joseph McNair;2010

for johnny hodges (9)

2010-04-12T14:18:00.000-07:00

for johnny hodges

(1906 --1970)

never the world's most highly animated showman or
greatest stage personality, but a tone so beautiful
it sometimes brought tears to the eyes –
this was johnny hodges.
duke ellington

yr pure tone & economy of melody;
relaxed swing, subtle inflection & perfect
phrasing; yr lyrical poise & effortless
technique made u revered ancestor to several
generations of altos. trane admired u,
as did ben webster. & goodman called u the
greatest man on alto sax he ever heard.
even bird acknowledged yr preeminence.
tho’ often hidden in the penumbra of
the ellington orchestra, yr star shines bright
in the dazzling firmament of modern jazz.

©Joseph McNair;2010

dave brubeck (8)

2010-04-11T21:06:00.000-07:00

for dave brubeck
1920 --

and there is a time where you can be beyond yourself.

you can be better than your technique. you can be

better than most of your usual ideas.

dave brubeck

experiments with offbeat time
signatures, sweet knack for sublime
polyrhythms, deft improvised
counterpoint delighted, surprised
a stolid jazz world, in yr time.

an unsquare dance in 7/4 time,
an estimated prophet, prime
chamber jazz mover; u devised
yr own sweet way.

yr legacy of freedom, time
out, deposed tyrant 4/4 time,
& a nascent free jazz disguised
as third stream duly advertised
to all without reason or rhyme
yr own sweet way.

© Joseph McNair;2010

for horace silver (7)

2010-04-09T11:55:00.000-07:00

for horace silver
(1929 -- )

yrs is a style of meaningful simplicity,
profound, rhythmically infectious, that
defined a genre. u coaxed the blues --
skulking like a vagrant among all those
intimidating scales, arpeggios & chromatic
ornaments -- to come out in front & out of
hiding, to colonize yr compositions like an
occult infection. u called the gospel down
to possess yr melodies, make them shout,
speak in cloven tongues, elicit thunderous
blakeyian press rolls, cross beats & fills;
quiet tremblings that grew into frenzied
explosions. u broke free of bebop, keeping
the bop, firing it up to make it hard & ductile;
distanced yrself from the so-called cool
& chamber jazz forms. u showed the way
for others to follow, especially the sons
who would write songs for the father –
that would be u, the intrepid pop & now,
perhaps, the venerable hard bop grandpop!

©Joseph McNair;2010

for bill evans (6)

2010-04-08T09:56:00.000-07:00

for bill evans

(1929--1980)

a unique & most unusual jazz pianist,
yr tone & conceptions were delicate
without being fragile. u could not
collaborate nine gestative months with
miles with thin skin. u might have been
vulnerable but u didn’t bruise or frighten
easily. he liked what he saw in u, what
u brought to the table, those hints of
lennie tristano, lee konitz & even horace
silver – yr quiet rage. he liked the way
the piano sounded when u played. yr
highly nuanced touch; those single note
tone phrases that rang like freedom (u let
them ring as if u wanted all & sundry to
savor the decay); those block chords &
rhythm independent melodies, never
aggressively percussive, more often
like a junkie shrinking back from bright
lit corners. & yet yr themes & figures
were exquisitely crafted disturbances

in space & time, studies in the kind of

pain only the soul can know, kinda blue,

abstracted from bent time. u’d take a

stone of a phrase in yr solo, toss it in

yr modal soup & let the ripples spread,

extend their rhythms, melodic passages

& harmonies. then, within the same solo,

u’d drop that stone again & again,repeating
that transformative dance each time. an
unfolding beautiful to behold. so unlike
the day-to-day ugly of cold sweats, malaise,
anxiety/depression that boy heroin brings;
the cramps,chills, muscle & bone aches &
nausea,the menacing, often terrifying
phantasmagora lurking just outside of eye
& earshot, the temporary fix that propped
the music up,that propped u up.the good
news is that u kicked, kicked the boy to
the curb.but u failed to strain yr impulses,
yr social alienation & sensation-seeking
thru & into the safe refuge of the vaunted
impressionism & introverted classical
sensibility folks so admired about u,
that influenced so many young, brilliant
players. & thus u fell under the fatal spell
of the girl. alas, yr mistress wasn’t music,
but cocaine.

©Joseph McNair;2010

rufus harley (5)

2010-04-07T04:21:00.000-07:00

for rufus harley
(1936 --2006)

what possessing spirit took u, rufus?
was it patrick mor maccrimmons’shade?
reeking of oolitic loam, the hedgerows
& boggy ground of the winged isle of
skye? did he invade yr dreams, a
speeding bonny boat like birds on the
wing, across time, haunting u with strains
of the big music, the pibroch & the ceòl mòr?
or maybe it was some anonymous egyptian
prodigy, from the courts of isis or ra,
who played the shawm, the folk oboe or
bamboo clarinet. it matters not that trane,
rollins & stitt drove u out of the tenor clan
for u found yr niche & fulfillment, donning
yr macleod tartan kilt, yr nigerian fila (or
any assorted knit hat u chose), tossing the

drones over yr right shoulder & adapting

the unwieldy bagpipes to a soulful post-bop

idiom; playing yrself like one possessed

into the lexicon of modern jazz.

©Joseph McNair;2010

for herman poole blount aka sun ra (4)

2010-04-06T18:59:00.000-07:00

for herman poole blount
aka sun ra
(1914 --1993)

when movements from tone to tone are codified

& consciously used within a symbolic frame of

reference, the language of music develops.

dane rudhyar

u, who cherished irony & paradox
as a way to break out of conventional
music making ventured even into stark
atonality in yr endless quest to
disrupt the basic unity of europe’s
collective psychism; its imperial
drive for conquest, expansion, austere
christian salvation. u were there eshu-ing,
trickerating & dancing at the crossroads;
carrying messages, re-coding movements
from tone to sacromagical tone –zoning!

© Joseph McNair; 2010

horace tapscott (3)

2010-04-05T12:10:00.000-07:00

for horace tapscott
(1934 --1999)

the one thing constant in a changing

world is the avant- garde.
louis jouvet

yr ark -- a life raft for breathing black history &
its marginalized players, composers, writers &
poets -- was abrasive, had a hard political
edge like yr abrupt, percussive, bop-like keyboard style
stirring big chords like fatha hines, tatum & erroll
garner. u, hunched like a long, tall wraith, rocking over
the keyboard, attacking from one end to the other;
a tidal wave crashing on the rock-like mainstream,
wearing its roughness smooth. on its winds yr distinctive,
syncretic compositional & solo voice. yr
musicians, poets & artists taking off in as
many odd directions as their numbers, yet meshing
cohesively in a funky subliminal groove.

©Joseph McNair;2010

for earl "fatha" hines (2)

2010-04-04T13:39:00.001-07:00

for earl “fatha” hines
1903 --1983
"If you see me up there on the stand smiling, I'm lost!"
fatha hines

u made the music long before they named it
one of its many “fathas” (tho’jellyroll claimed it);
when america in heat backed up to jim crow’s fence
& let the players get to her & de dip do bop, do it.

took a gig @ seventeen for fifteen bucks a week
played piano in der liederhaus to eat & earn yr keep.
that pittsburg club, yr music matrix, molded & begat
yr insouciant, exhuberant avante garde; yr cheek.

met satchmo in chicago, joined his band & played
on some of the most important records ever made.
1928 @ the grand terrace café, u were al capone’s
piano man, led yr own big band, had it made.

for eleven years u led that band, three shows a night
four shows each saturday, broadcast on open mikes
across the nation’s airways. mr. b made his debut
& a parade of greats followed ‘cause u did it right.

no less than j mcshann & young art tatum tuned u in,
did not nod or sleep ‘til u went off the air; took in
yr lightning octaves, steady left hand tenths, yr chords,
trills, two-fingered runs & glisses; yr soul pulse/vision.

& then u faded until ’64. perhaps u peaked too soon
but never did u play a melancholy note, a despairing tune.
perfervid pianist all the while, u broke out solo, to amaze
again those who forgot or never heard yr boon.

u showed us how to swing, create real jazz playing alone,
a whole orchestra by yrself. no one ever got yr style, none!
for nineteen years until u died, u were the daddy, first
on every poll, the real fatha of jazz piano, the only one.

© Joseph McNair;2010

for art tatum (1)

2010-04-03T12:59:00.000-07:00

for art tatum
1909 - 1956

"i only play the piano, but tonight god is in the house."

fats waller, announcing art tatum

bird aspired to play yr right hand, but not even he
could run with u, catch up to u because u were
so ahead of yrself; more fly than he. oh how he
thanked his stars that u -- with yr perfect pitch & nimble
fingers effortlessly playing the impossible;
cataract blind in one eye, not seeing at all out
the other -- had chosen to play piano & not
the saxophone. that night in ’33 at new york’s
morgan’s bar when u cut up j.p. johnson, willie
“the lion” smith & fats waller with yr two-fingered
runs & self taught technique, reharmonized melodies
& strong, swinging pulse, u sent a message, a shot heard
round the fickle jazz world: there can only be just one!

©: Joseph McNair; 2010

for avotcja (14)

2010-03-31T13:00:00.000-07:00

for avotcja
1941 --

melodies, rhythms, & timbres arise from
the immersive environs of spanish brooklyn.
a girl child is born, swaddled in the wafting
cuerpo de espíritu of laguerre velez, the
seditious crónicas of jesús colon & the deific
musical conversations of tito puente. u came
to us, avotcja, addicted to sound, even the
white noise released from the kinetic crashings
of cultures, the new sonorities of loneliness.
passing thru spanish harlem's liminality, thru
its screens of specified mesh — growing up
latina in new york —u landed in & bounced
around the avant garde spaces of los angeles'
central avenue & the influence of horace tapscott.
no one had to tell u of the inseparability of
music, dance, rite & poetry, my sister. like
most african-derived artists, u knew intuitively
that such separations were but artificial devices
of academics trying to stretch their thoughts like
goat skin over the membranophonic frames of
heart & soul. yr ideas — word, rhythm or song —
grew organically from the nature of yr spiritual
timbre. yr poems are polyphonic choirs of wood,
skin, & metal; yr rhythms, melismatic inducements
for spirit trance. yr dance, acrobatic virtuosity
wed to explorations of multiple percussive tone
color & rhythm. these were yr meat; sustained
you thru the fire & blood of watts, thru yr
sojourn in europe & return to california to play
with rahsaan, john handy & so many others.
u have always known, my dear poet sister,
percussionist, olorisa, just like u know the
source of earth, wind, fire & water, that the
music erupting from the fissures in yr heart
& soul, is the same as the dance of the claves
in yr hands, the rippling, cascading twinkle
of tuned wind chimes, the urgent slap/strike
of yr ocean drum & idiophonic wood blocks &
cowbells, the contained rainstorms of yr rain
stick, the reco reco's rasping counterpoint,
the life rattle of the shekere & the stark
tintinabulations of yr temple gongs. the
poignant poetry of the words condensed
from yr deep water body through which all
feeling (draining from the soul of the world)
flows,or from the magic theater of yr sobriety,
where one learns to do the next right thing
one day at a time; produces its own validity;
is validated again & again in yr rich creative
spell-weaving that celebrates the ever
resurrecting goodness in us all.

©Joseph McNair; 2010

for melba liston (13)

2010-03-31T12:38:00.000-07:00

for melba liston
1926 -1999

sliding from bebop to motown was

for u like moving from kansas city

to l.a. -- no change in direction. u

were arranger/saavy & yr sound did

not break, yr movements clearly

mapped & every pitch had the same

harmonic number. yr portamento

life, was full of restless intervals, had

its salient recurring figures, but u,

melba, resolved yr augmented 4ths

into sweet minor sixths picking the

‘bone as yr axe not because it was

what finishing school girls did, but

because the thing was so damn

beautiful; falling in & out with music

teachers who meant well because u
knew yr own musical mind, had a

great ear & could write like a crowning

muse. the great bandleaders found u -–

gerald wilson in ’43, johnnie griffin

in ‘45, diz in ’48 & ’56, billie holliday

in ’48-’49, Q in ’57, clark terry, &

mingus thru the sixties & randy weston

in the sixties, seventies,eighties &

nineties. although u slow played yr valve

trombone, a sensitive virtuoso blues &

ballad stylist, blending motivic & linear

improvisations to make yr solos lyrical

& gay or mysterious & warm, u are

remembered best for possessing like a

loa the musical ideas of others, filling

them with the aşẹ of hidden & secret

things,writing vital pieces for combo &

big band alike, moving from ballads &

standards to funky grooves; melodic &

polyrhythmic motifs with extended tonal

vocabularies, so rich in altered harmonic

voicings, layered to the bone with due

dissonance, & the deep variations & subtle

shadings of africa.

©Joseph McNair;2010

for clora bryant (12)

2010-03-31T00:09:00.000-07:00

for clora bryant
1930 –

rise up, rise up,

&, as the trumpet blowing
chases the dreams of men...
edward thomas

u played so sweet yr dad broke down & cried;
his texas girl could never be the same.
a lady with a trumpet u became
against all odds & practice true & tried.
who knew what fickle deities betide,
or how a colored girl would earn her fame.
that u might play with bird or diz, declaim
the feminine & change the tide
or break thru gender barriers to play
with men, exert yr forceful horn on jazz,
embrace & improvise on change --
no real surprise just history today!
a light beneath a bushel? no. in jazz
a bebop lighthouse beacon & phalange!

© Joseph McNair;2010

for jutta hipp (11)

2010-03-28T22:44:00.000-07:00

for jutta hipp
1925-2003

u never ceased to believe that real jazz happened in
small clubs, wrought by superb musicians whose talents were
eclipsed because they refused to push themselves into
the bright lights. & u stayed zoned in the comfort of small
quartets & quintets nourishing yr talent with
count basie, teddy wilson, fats waller & later
the hard bop, blues inspired rhythmic propensities of
horace silver until u emerged as the only
widely known, much respected female jazz pianist
in germany & europe’s own first lady of jazz.
u stayed true to yr beliefs, eschewing the spotlight
playing with a lean, low-key percussive, swinging style
then stopped playing in ’58, too through, all too through!

©Joseph McNair;2010

for lil hardin (10)

2010-03-23T13:15:00.000-07:00

for lil hardin
1898 -- 1971

what was it about jellyroll’s
playing that got to u, lil?

was it his abrupt breaks or

stop-time passages, how he

swung the eighth & sixteenth

notes, or his break-neck

tempo? u said his piano rocked,

the floor shivered & the people

swayed when he played, while

he beat out a double rhythm

with his foot on the loud
pedal. what did you expect

from the man who claimed to

have invented jazz? he probably

knew he gave u a bit of a thrill,

even amazed u a little bit, but

when u threw rachmaninoff's

prelude in c sharp minor on

him, just to give him a little

sumpin/sumpin. i’m sure he

didn’t know what to think.

but he showed u something
that day in jones’ music store

on chicago’s southside, & u

started embellishing those

sheet music scores u showed

off to sell, jellyroll-like & with

yr own ideas. yep, ole jellyroll

coaxed the kitty out the bag.
that little taste he gave u grew

into a mighty thirst. a thirst

that took u to the de luxe café

where u were conscripted to

play in sugar johnnie's new

orleans creole orchestra.

yo mama didn’t like it one bit!

didn’t want u on beale street

or anywhere near the jazz,

the drugs or the whores. but

$22.50 a week was more than

she made. thus did needmo’
assuage her doubts. enter hot

miss lil who played like a man

but dressed like a sunday school

teacher. from sugar johnnie to

king oliver at the dreamland

where u met destiny in too-
country-for–chicago louis armstrong,
bought him some new clothes,
made him cut the bangs out of
his hair &finally married him.
cajoled himaway from king oliver
into astellar career of his own.
uhelped make him, little brown
girl; booked his gigs, wrote his

music & led his band while he

pranced & clowned on the band

stand. u were among those

featured players on some of the

first jazz ever recorded. u even

wrote some of those first great

tunes. but true to yr own vision,

u had to leave louis, not so much

because of his infidelities or his

capricious ways, but to become

the most prominent woman in

early jazz; to lead yr own bands,

male, mixed & all female, to sing,

do musicals, write, conduct, stretch.

but that didn’t keep you from

following his career like a

hound on a scent until he died.

i guess you got lonely for him

because you followed him out

that same exit seven weeks later.

its just as well, lil, for though

you have carved for yrself a place

in the history of jazz, yr rightful

& significant place, anyone

looking for louis will find u close

by, a footnote to his towering

greatness.

for hazel scott (9)

2010-03-23T03:10:00.000-07:00

for hazel scott

1920 -- 1981

i'm a woman

phenomenally.

phenomenal woman,

that's me.

maya angelou

sitting bronze, bare-shouldered & beautiful

at the piano, café society, new york’s first

integrated nightclub, held its collective 1939

breath as nineteen yr old hazel scott confidently
sashayed like a stunningly attractive woman

accustomed to admiring eyes thru the

pronounced lyricism, expressive breadth &
structural ingenuity of the opening movements

of rachmaninoff’s valse in d flat major to suddenly

translate along an aural axis away from the

plane of familiar focus thru a looking glass of an

african gumption; into the tonic/chordal striations

of stride, the seductive left hand decadence of

boogie & the emotional modulations of the blues.
[she would later break national sales records for

decca with her “bach to boogie”repertoire.]

her music was the space wherein she kept the
source of her power hidden in plain sight. a

cyclonic force to reckoned with, neither racism,

husband adam clayton powell nor the vicious
slanders of the petty little men of the house

un-american activities committee could stop her

from cresting, from drawing attention to her

unabashed genius for fifty odd years. when one

door closed,she kicked another wide open &

crossed its threshold like a trinidad carnival

street parade. Not even death, the midnight

robber, nor jab molassie could stop her --

was just another threshold to cross; were just

two more in a long line of characters to get by.

for marian mcpartland (8)

2010-03-22T14:12:00.000-07:00

for marian mcpartland

1918 --

“flexible, complex, impossible to pigeon-hole”
is what some say of yr musical style. like the song,
i might say, u really are “too marvelous for words” –-
a prodigy still at ninety-two. u made leonard
feather very wrong about that tall, laughing chick who
was english, white &… a girl. three deadly strikes, he said,
limiting yr success in new york & the jazz world
at large. but u found a nest in the hickory house
with its high ceilings, oval bar & cozy bandstand,
& learned yr craft from a nightly procession of stars
who came to hear u; play with u -- ellington, hawkins,
shaw, goodman, strayhorn, even oscar peterson,
teaching u, growing u up & loving u madly.

©Joseph McNair;2010

for joanne brakeen (7)

2010-03-21T22:17:00.000-07:00

for joanne brakeen
1938 --

do they call you the picasso of jazz piano
because u boldly paint yr musical ideas from
different aural points, independently? because
u pendulum from brilliantly colored, loosely
structured tonal poems of intense emotion
to the monochromatic, faceted abstractions that
whimsically hint of melody. or perhaps like
picasso, u had yr own époque negre which
vitalizes u still, yr amazing chops, the crystalline
geometry in yr virtuosic & unpredictable playing.
u must have been one bold white girl to beaugarde
yr way into art blakey’s jazz messengers in ’69
& u have certainly come a long way from the
self-taught slip of a girl imitating frankie carle,
bud powell & charlie parker. when i listen to u
i run the gamut from being buffeted like a ship-
wrecked sailor on a flimsy fragment of raft by
towering tidal swells & torrential winds driving
yr keyboard attack that strains my faith to its
limits [that inspite of all u will bring me safely
to shore] to a magical depiction of sound that
eschews the aural replication of nature, but
exaggerates & distorts notes, forms, & colors

that massage my soul like a forty-fingered
masseuse. the greatest among today’s players
acknowledge u peer; the tyners, the jarretts,
the hancocks, brubecks & matsui’s. even
tatum were he alive would throw you a
respectful nod. here are my heartfelt flowers,
joanne, the kind that won/t wilt or fade on
paper. impress them, please, on yr heart so
that like yr trills & figures on mine, they will
remain eternally fresh.

©Joseph McNair; 2010

for shirley scott (6)

2010-03-21T11:46:00.000-07:00

for shirley scott

1934-2002

miss shirley, mambo asogwe
of the hammond b-3, oh how
u loved to preserve the rituals
& songs linking the spirits &
our people; blending in yr
m'bugi cauldron an aggressive,
deftly rhythmic attack steeped
in triplet related swing, intricate
bebop harmonies minus post-
coltrane modal voicings. with
bluesy melody lines undergirded
by a gospel worship chord or
two, to let the spirits flow.

u rocked us & hard bopped us,
shirley, scored our lives between
the commercials with jazz, crisp
but relaxed in tempo & full of
diverse spirits, like miles who
came clean in ’54, walkin’ in out
of a deep jones into the arms of
his shapeshifting muse. but u,
shirley, unsullied & singleminded,
fused exquisite harmonic conception
with funky lufuki sensibility, just
outside of mainstream jazz but
ever true to yr blue loas/muses.

©Joseph McNair;2010

for toshiko akiyoshi (5)

2010-03-19T15:17:00.000-07:00

for toshiko akiyoshi
1929 --

in the spring sea

waves undulating & undulating

all day long

yosa buson

to swing like teddy wilson, the whimsical
go-between to fatha hines (who lively lurked
in impenetrable lounges of negro)
was one of a few jazzy thoughts a gifted,
piano loving japanese girl, late from
manchuria, might hold fast while seeking to
fashion out of her own sound & style a jazz
orchestra made in her image & steeped in
mirin, soy sauce & fresh ginger, dry rubbed &
marinated in coarse ellington spices,
boppish lines, bluesy seasonings…& cooking!

©Joseph McNair;2010

for turiyasangitananda (4)

2010-03-18T22:50:00.001-07:00

for turiyasangitananda
aka alice coltrane
1937-2007

why hang'st thou lonely on yon withered bough?

unstrung for ever, must thou there remain…

henry louis vivian derozio

does it really matter who u were
before, swamini? before everything
turned saffron, when the very air
bore the fragrant scent of god’s
anointed mercy & no less than u
found yrself on a fated journey,
in a glorious galaxy -- in satchidananda,
in the energetic state of non-duality.
does it matter that yr music, even
then, yoked life, mind & matter
with sublime states -- in & thru yr
piano’s ten thousand moving parts?
in & thru yr harp’s neck, sound
board & strings? in & thru yr raw,
blistered & calloused virtuosity. no,
it matters not at all, for u are with
that, turiyasangitananda, in the
supreme abode of the adorable,
the formless, passionless & unborn;
swimming in that existence, in that
consciousness & bliss -- in that sea of
milk. & should your beloved harp
hang on some withered bough,
unstrung, fear not. yr music, yr sacred
selfsong, yr chaitya purusha will
incarnate again in new bodies;
resonate in new harps & hearts!

©Joseph McNair;2010

for dorothy ashby (3)

2010-03-18T12:51:00.000-07:00

for dorothy ashby
1932-1986

u coaxed a syncretic hard bop out
of the perpendicular positioning of a
plane of strings; in a love object/
instrument squeezed between yr
knees, in a long, graceful wooden
neck resting lightly on yr shoulder.
yr austere, imposingly fleet fingertips
pushed by pistoning arms & hands
picked & plucked strings of silver,gold
nylon & gut. a glissando flourish here, an
infectious groove there, that cut right
into the flesh of blues that bled
buddhist—that bumped & skipped
a peripatetic meditation, opening &
extending bebop to let the gospel in,
to let the boogie in, to let the hemistech,
quatrain & the spirit of khayyámi in.
to become radiant & reveal the
heavenly perfection in yr soul.

©Joseph McNair;2010

for dorothy donegan (2)

2010-03-17T14:28:00.000-07:00

for dorothy donegan

1922-1998

“her reputation as a lounge entertainer has virtually buried the fact that she is potentially the greatest jazz pianist playing today."
john s. wilson

u, lady dynamite, not peterson, was tatum’s
true protégé. yr stride left hand played a four-beat life
pulse with a single bass note, a shrill octave, sassy
seventh or tentative tenth interval on yr first
& third beats; an orchestral chord on yr second &
fourth. we all knew that this "baby got bach! ” when u dressed
a standard in polyphonic structures,when u struck

the notes in that melody & listened to their long

decay, when u placed yr uncommon accents in strange
& unusual places, often before the down,
& then swung gently like marylou, bringing the halves

of yr genius, like tatum & williams together –

we witnessed adroitness never again to be seen .

for marylou williams (1)

2010-03-17T14:21:00.000-07:00

for marylou williams
1910-1981

jamming with mckinney's cotton pickers at harlem's
rhythm club, u caught the eye of no less than satchmo.
he heard u out, then picked yr skinny fifteen year old
butt up & kissed you. the rest is unrevisionist
herstory. who’d a thought that mary elfrieda scruggs
from buttermilk-bottom, the little piano girl
smuggled into pittsburg’s juke joints & gambling houses
under her stepdaddy’s overcoat & who played for
pittsburg’s sporting man coin, would not only go on to
write for goodman, dorsey & lunceford, play with the duke
but mentor the likes of diz & monk; pass bebop thru
her birth canal, all the time swinging, writing as she
played, showing us what real jazz comping was all about.

©Joseph McNair;2010

2010-02-28T23:45:00.000-08:00

kinkan ma’sẹ olori orite

for hrg olorí iya orite olasowo adefunmi

are queens born or made? is there a royal jelly, a
thick, creamy secretion to feed to a girl, like that fed
by the hive in copious amounts to one larval
honeybee? to modify its genome? to groom a
queen? what made sheila brown from pleasantville, new jersey
special? who opened the road? who sniffed out the shortest
route? who cleared away the obstructions that stood in the
way to eku odun oyotunji & the great
orisa vodou spiritual lineage she helped
to build? did this all unfold thru’ the exertions of
human will? nay, not fickle human will, but divine.
this queen was born, not made, her portion conferred by great
olódùmarè to lead his dear children along.

2010-02-28T23:30:00.000-08:00

kinkan ma’sẹ nana

for ohemmaa nana boatenma

ye ko bisa aberewa, we come to consult
the wise woman, the one ordained by the gods to bring
into the world all that is good in the human race.
we come to see you, nana – nana boatenmaa.
u sit so fine & fair on the ohemmaa adwa,
the queen mother’s silver stool – u who might publicly
rebuke the king when he is mistaken, incite the
village even to war when audacity fails &
stout men quake in fear, or spread soothing words like an
unguent on heart wounds so that we, yr children, might heal;
that we might even forgive those who have treated us
unjustly. we come, nana, to behold yr luster,
the soft, subdued iridescence of yr great wisdom.

2010-02-28T23:00:00.000-08:00

kinkan ma’sẹ yẹyẹ

for delma jackson rodriguez

queen mother delma, yr fierce passion power defines
abundance. when u received carida del cobre
like river water incorporates drops of honey
& aspirated prayer, u became an ambient
agent thru’ whom all blessings flow, particularly
those of oşun edẹ, who creates beauty, elegance
& grace & oşun ibu kolẹ, who transforms the
erotic into the motive force that stirs even
the òrìşa. u bring authentic aşe to the
ceremonies of the living. u place the beaded
crown on the genuine oba’s head, & u ensure
that issues of respect & justice toward women
are maintained. mojuba mother, yẹyẹ adupe!

2010-02-28T11:15:00.000-08:00

kinkan ma’sẹ adora

for adora obi nweze

first daughter of the people, heart/soul of yr father/
mother god, where would this community be without
u? more than efuru righting the wrongs visited
upon us, adjudicating justice, u have been
like nimu kwome, ibo goddess of creation,
our protection; like nnemuru ora, female
force extraordinaire, who provided for the needs of
her community. we are humbled, adora. we
stand quite in awe of the very least of your service.
u believed & therefore achieved, onye kwe chi ya
ekwe, our oboloko/adaogu, spirit
worker/warrior, we thank u! anyi n'ekele gi!

© Joseph McNair; 2010

a perfect love (10)

2010-02-14T19:27:00.000-08:00

a perfect love

if its not love, we can’t
take it when we go
john brooks

in matters of love, carnal & profane,
his whimsical heart did equivocate &
prophet/sigh; was prone to dazzling leaps of fate.
falling for common, golden-hearted ex-tarts,
conflicted, prurient missionary types
or the uncommon daughter of a lesser
god. but his heart in other matters of love,
was true, was pervaded by the perfect gift
of grace –- charity -- come from spirit, true to
spirit; a true heart overflowing with that
which must be given away -- a perfect love.

©Joseph McNair;2010

consider a bedraggled obatala (9)

2010-02-14T19:20:00.000-08:00

consider a bedraggled obatala

& he did it all with just
a hundred pounds of clay…
elgin, dixon & roger

consider a bedraggled obatala
working off the sum of unpleasant effects
following a drunk to end all drunks. can you
imagine him shaping the heads & bodies
of his first children while trying to clear his
head? did he feel lost? or lacking in purpose?
imagine his surprise when his first few seemed
less than perfect, with flattened heads, almond eyes,
small ears & mouths, not at all ugly, but
different. & he resolved to make us all
less than perfect, that he might love us as much.

© Joseph McNair; 2010

hooked (8)

2010-02-13T09:07:00.000-08:00

hooked

" ...you're so kind & careful not to go to her too soon
& she takes your voice & leaves you howling at the moon."
bob dylan

it took just one time, just one penetration
& he was hooked; his mind gave him permission
to think about her as much as he wanted;
to go to any lengths to make it happen
again, to feel good again, to feel the sweet
tension in his muscles, in the skin pulled tight
around arteries opened wide enough to
let blood surge, to squeeze veins shut & trap the
blood inside his hugely swollen need to slide
piston-like thru the grip of lubricious walls,
beyond the point of no return…& explode

©Joseph McNair;2010

& i lost u (7)

2010-02-12T23:40:00.000-08:00

& i lost u

i lost someone, my love

someone who's greater than the stars above

someone who I need

someone who don't let my heart bleed...

james brown

i have lost my way. my poor soul, an empty
abyss. love is an incomprehensible
mystery; my world, dimly sensed, is not much
more than a faint, disintegrating shadow.
i saw u, my love, transfigured, bathed in the
light of attraction. u whom i blithely picked
to love thru means unconscious & unknown.
i saw yr transcendence & shrank back; could not
stand the glory & majesty of u -- had
to bring u down to planes of tribal custom
where i might understand u… & I lost u.

©Joseph McNair;2010

those treacherous tender traps (6)

2010-02-12T01:16:00.000-08:00

those treacherous tender traps

i don’t have to beg u to hold me
cause somebody else will...
yr good thing's gonna come to an end!

burdened by recapitulations & the
balancing of accounts, it seems so easy
to stay & dwell on a harvest of endings.
why don’t i just leave? u really don’t want me
anymore. rather than walk aimlessly thru
my days looking backwards, afraid to let go,
unable to disentangle myself from
painful recollections, i should follow up
on those notes deftly passed to me by yr friends,
those looks, touches or lingerie given as
invitations, those treacherous tender traps.

© Joseph McNair; 2010

amour mortelle (5)

2010-02-11T22:28:00.000-08:00

amour mortelle

i’ve been your slave ever since i’ve been your babe
but before i’ll be your dog, i’ll see you buried in your grave!
billie’s blues

“…& if i can’t have u, nobody else will!”
he had laughed in the wake of those chilling words,
whose echoes now rise in the steam ascending,
seperating from the blood oozing from his
mortal wound. she loved him, of that he had no
doubt; had culled him from a teeming psychic sea
to embrace, to cleave to, like a devotee
who craves self-surrender, a martyr giving
completely to a cause, a tragic woman
in utter sexual abandon. hell has
no better assassin than love’s lethal goad!

© Joseph McNair;2010

the coupling of sun & soil (4)

2010-02-10T22:29:00.000-08:00

the coupling of sun & soil

i've got the sweetest hangover

i don't want to get over
mcleod & sawyer

the coupling of sun & soil is passion-framed;
is joyeous, dynamic & sometimes cruel.
the sun stretches forth his yearning arms, to hold
the earth -- like i hold u -- to undulantly
move, the two of them (the two of us) into
tumid living, flaccid dying; into the
slick, slipperysweet confection of love &
love’s creamy glamor, into the pain that hurts
so good, the release from the dramas of light.
to lay spent, wide open to the peace of night’s
cozy dark & a sky full of grinning stars

©Joseph McNair;2010